


The Long Cold Black Cloud

by waltzmatildah



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Gun Violence, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 12:46:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4138089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Pre-series AU.</b> Will and Diego stumble into trouble. The cluster responds, then comes to their rescue...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Cold Black Cloud

**Author's Note:**

  * For [insomniabug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/insomniabug/gifts).



  
_I opened my mouth to scream and shout,_  
_I waved my arms and flapped about._  
_But I couldn't scream and I couldn't shout,_  
_couldn't scream and I couldn't shout…_

 

*

Will’s riding shotgun on the way back to the station when the radio announces a ‘possible shots fired’ in an industrial estate less than half a dozen blocks from where they currently are. Diego pulls the squad car into a tight u-turn, trips the lights and siren as Will confirms with HQ that they’re two minutes out.

The snow that had been trying to settle all afternoon is coming down with more purpose suddenly, shallow drifts beginning to develop in the gutters (causing Nomi to shiver inexplicably despite the over-sized mug of coffee she’s got both hands wrapped around). As they approach their target, Diego shuts off the siren, spins the wheel, hard left and at speed, and Will notes that several streetlights seem to be out, another flickering its desire to join them.

 

 

They exit the car and move their way through the half dark towards the warehouse at the centre of the call. There’s a van, dark green, parked on the other side of the lot, and Will calls the license plate in perfunctorily, doesn’t bother waiting for a reply before he nods in Diego’s direction, their non-verbal communication fluent as they set up on either side of a door that’s already ajar.

Diego makes the first move, Will at his shoulder (Lito enthusiastically running lines he’s not entirely convinced were part of his most recent script), their guns drawn.

 

 

It’s silent inside the warehouse, eerily so, and Will raises his eyebrows in Diego’s direction, effectively conveys his growing unease.

They’ve already been told backup is headed their way, the plan is to do a quick reconnaissance, try and establish the veracity of the report and the number of people, if any, still present.

Nothing fancy, nothing complicated. 

_A routine search…_

 

 

There’s an explosion of gunfire then, a deafening riot of metal and smoke and movement that Will can’t begin to track as he sees Diego drop for cover to his left (while Sun wakes with a scream dying in her throat and the burn of a thousand fires turning her heart and her lungs to ash).

Will thinks he should probably join Diego on the ground, that cover seems like a sensible idea right about now.

He should get down on his knees, he thinks, should see how far out their backup is, make a new plan.

_Make a new plan, make a new plan, make a new plan…_

 

 

It takes longer than he’d always thought it would to register that he’s been shot, maybe more than once. That his right arm is limp by his side, his fingers numb and his heartbeat making heavy metal music inside his chest (as Capheus stalls his van, loses control of his feet, can’t seem to coordinate the sticky clutch in time with an accelerator that no longer feels familiar). 

And then Will _is_ on his knees, but it’s not by choice, and Diego’s no longer moving, no longer scrabbling around on the ground beside him, and Will thinks, absently, that maybe, maybe, he is already dead.

He’d check for a pulse if he remembered how…

 

 

Black-red blood is running from the very tips of his fingers, a steady stream that originates somewhere further up his arm, his shoulder, his chest. He watches the growing pool of his own insides, detached and oddly fascinated as his capacity for independent thought leaks out alongside it.

There are noises, deep voices screaming, the gunning of an engine on the other side of the void. Will’s suddenly moving then, across the concrete floor towards Diego and wrapping his one functioning arm beneath his partner’s ribs, hauling him backwards (as Wolfgang drops the tools he’s just been handed and feels his shoulders tense of their own accord, _hauling, hauling…_ ).

The pain is extraordinary. Steals his breath and short circuits his spine with every other beat of his tripping pulse. 

White bright and pitch dark and only emptiness in between.

 

 

Time is no longer a linear concept. It keeps speeding up and slowing down and skipping, skipping, skipping ahead before he’s ready. (Kala moves to turn the movie she’s watching off mid-scene, plunges the otherwise empty room into a stuttering silence as she starts to count, one, two, … ten, the thump and the thud) of Diego’s pulse. 

Will can barely move his own fingertips, but suddenly he can feel the steady rhythm of Diego’s heart, and that is enough. _It has to be…_

 

 

It’s dark now, too dark to see, and the soft snow that had been settling outside in the gutters feels like it is fast filling up the parts of Will his blood stream is rapidly abandoning.

Diego’s eyes opened briefly a few moments ago. They’d reflected the absurd neon green of the exit sign above a door that might as well be whole oceans and mountain ranges away, before they’d dropped closed again. He hadn’t spoken, had barely breathed.

It felt for all the world like _goodbye_.

 

 

Will’s own eyelids are growing heavier, every blink of absolute darkness stretching out by seconds, minutes…

_Hours._

He wants to sleep, to find somewhere warm and silent, where the agony and the horror are little more than faded memories. But even while he’s reaching for this, wishing for it with everything he has left, he shifts, _shifts_ , sets his insides ablaze once more (as Riley spins neatly between tracks, screams into the endless oblivion of bodies and lights and sound…

“wake up, wake up, wake uuuup…”).


End file.
